Liberate to Innovate: Learning from the pandemic – the behaviours that will deliver NHS digital transformation

LIBERATE TO INNOVATE
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Learning from the pandemic -
the behaviours that will deliver
NHS digital transformation

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Report author: Richard Vize
Richard Vize has been a journalist and analyst in public policy and
public services reform for more than 25 years. He contributes to the
Guardian and British Medical Journal and works with a range of
organisations across health and local government.
Richard is a former Editor of both Health Service Journal and Local
Government Chronicle, was Managing Director Media at Dods
Parliamentary Communications and Head of Communications at
regulator Ofsted.
Richard’s passions are photography, independent travel and
political history.
June 2021

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Foreword
The speed and ingenuity of the NHS’s
response to the Covid-19 pandemic
presents a unique opportunity to
understand how successful digital
transformation can be delivered quickly
and at scale.
As infections mounted and the country
went into lockdown, every part of
the health service began the rapid
adoption of digital tools, but there was
no certainty of success. The NHS’s ability
to reconfigure services and buildings,
establish new virtual teams, find new
ways of delivering care and even
improve services depended on liberating
countless individual acts of leadership,
collaboration, problem solving and
empathy.
To capture the behaviours, values and
decisions which made all this possible,
the Health Innovation Network – the
Academic Health Science Network for
south London – and digital innovators
Sitekit Applications listened to the
stories of NHS staff who have been
making this extraordinary acceleration
in digital transformation a reality, to
help us all learn from 2020 about how to
deliver innovation in the years to come.
We have also reflected on how digital
transformation during the pandemic has
enhanced NHS culture.
We believe there are vital lessons to be
learned from the pandemic about what
drives success in digital transformation.
We hope that chief information officers
and other technology leaders and
senior managers will use this unique
opportunity for learning to maximise
the chances of success as the healthcare
digital revolution accelerates.
Jill DeBene
Chief Executive Officer
Sitekit Applications
Anna King
Commercial Director
Health Innovation Network &
DigitalHealth.London

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The Health Innovation Network is the
Academic Health Science Network
(AHSN) for south London, one of 15
AHSNs across England. As the only
bodies that connect the NHS, social care,
academic organisations, the third sector
and industry, we are uniquely placed
to increase the spread and adoption of
innovation across large populations, at
pace and scale.
Sitekit delivers digital transformation for
the NHS, supporting the development
of a health and care system that is
integrated, secure and built around
individuals and their needs. Our
innovations include: LifeBook, enabling
lifelong health and care records by
developing the tools to support patients
at different stages of their healthcare
journey; eRedbook, Sitekit’s flagship
Lifebook application which is digitalising
child health; and the NHS Staff Passport,
which has supported the response to the
Covid-19 pandemic by enabling staff to
move quickly between NHS organisations.
DigitalHealth.London is looking to make
London a global leader in digital health,
through the digital transformation of
health and social care supported by its
programmes for digital health innovators,
companies, NHS and social care staff and
academia. It is a collaboration delivered
by MedCity and London’s three Academic
Health Science Networks – UCL Partners,
Imperial College Health Partners and the
Health Innovation Network.

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We are immensely grateful to the following for contributing to this report:
Dr Ambarish Sharma, International Clinical Fellow, Neonatology, Imperial College Healthcare NHS
Trust
Christopher Tack, Clinical Specialist, Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust
Dr Hai Lin Leung, Workforce Transformation Lead, North West London Collaboration of Clinical
Commissioning Groups
Joy Coutts, Integrated Manager Children’s Universal Services, Barking & Dagenham, North East
London Foundation Trust.
Laura Ellis-Philip, Director of Digital, Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Lisa Emery, Chief Information Officer, Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Louise Keane, Professional Education and Development Nurse, North London Partners (Barnet,
Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington)
Mary Marsh, Head of Targeted Health Services Redbridge, North East London Foundation Trust
Michelle Angell, Associate Director of Assurance, Castle Point and Rochford and Southend Clinical
Commissioning Groups
Dr Natasha Phillips, Chief Nursing Information Officer & Director Mission 4 - Digital Safety, NHSX
Dr Nick Dattani, GP Partner, Millway Medical Practice; Barnet Borough Clinical Lead for Adults, Long
Term Conditions, Prevention, Frailty, Dementia and Community Services, North Central London
Clinical Commissioning Group
Dr Phil Koczan, GP Partner, Churchill, Medical Centre; Clinical Lead, Primary Care Digital
Transformation team, NHSX
Rashida Pickford, Consultant Physiotherapist, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
Sigal Hachlili Dwyer, Director of AI, Data and Digital Innovation, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust.
We are also grateful to the following digital technology suppliers for putting us in
touch with NHS staff who have been using their kit in digital transformation. They have
not had any financial or editorial involvement in this project.
Feebris – AI tools that improve access to early diagnosis for vulnerable patients
Patchwork – tech-enabled staff bank service
Whzan – Blue Box all-in-one telehealth case.

How to build digital
transformation success

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Transformation messages
from the pandemic
Focus on simplicity and reliability
Understand the clinical and operational need
Liberate data sharing
Liberate talent and confidence
Employ emotionally intelligent leadership
Put IT leaders at the heart of decision-making
Get all the decision-makers in the room
Support staff in taking risks
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How to build digital transformation success

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Provide a shared sense of purpose
Build a critical mass of technology staff
Ensure good communications with IT teams
Win hearts and minds rather than issue orders
Don’t make assumptions about who will champion innovation
Let people move at their own speed
Focus on outcomes, not processes
Always keep sight of the goal
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Focus on simplicity and reliability, not
novelty
Overwhelmingly clinical staff don’t want technology that will
impress them, they want something that will reliably and simply
do the job. Particularly in a crisis the priority is to have a system
they can trust and get to grips with easily, without overloading
their capacity or tolerance for change.
“We set a clear direction, with the support of the executive team,
around ‘let’s not try to make a big raft of changes, let’s make sure
the systems that people know and love work, are stable and safe
and secure and available wherever they need to be. We’ll get to the
clever stuff when we have got through this initial difficult period’. That
seems to have worked well, so now we are dropping in some of the
bright ideas around the edges.”
Initially a lot of the technology response to the pandemic was around
scaling up existing systems without them falling over – encompassing
everything from homeworking to opening mothballed buildings – so
the priority was to get the basics right and then build outwards.
“A lot of what we did to start off with wasn’t what you would
technically call innovation, it was more responding at scale. We
needed to scale up working from home capability very quickly so we
could free up space for clinical teams and keep the site as closed as
possible. So we focused a lot of effort on getting in place things like
remote videoconferencing for our multidisciplinary team meetings.
“It was one of those things where [previously] you had a lot of
resistance to the idea of not meeting in person, but very quickly
the clinicians got behind doing that remotely. Now the prevailing
sentiment is ‘please don’t make us go back to doing it the old way’.
They’re asking for more functionality so we are looking to add things
like connections into histopathology images. It’s been a big success.”
Trusts are now looking beyond the ‘quick and simple’ solutions
introduced at speed to long term improvements: “Clinicians are now
wanting to tackle the more complex issues and streamline processes
that have been challenging the organisation for a while.”
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Understand the clinical and
operational need
The speed and criticality of digital innovation during the
pandemic has impelled organisations to focus on achieving the
clinical outcome rather than the technical aspects of upgrading or
expanding systems. This has meant listening closely to clinicians
to understand their day-to-day operational requirements and then
designing a solution.
“It’s not trying to be too clever in your own little bubble, because
unless you actually go and ask people what they’re having a problem
with, you can’t help them with a solution. You’ve got to listen, and
start with the clinical need and work backwards. Sometimes it’s
something so simple, and they’ll be over the moon with something
simple that changes their day-to-day environment.”
This contrasts with some experiences of introducing EPR systems,
where staff have felt they were being pushed to meet the needs of
the system rather than the other way around.
“Nurses would say they are digitally done to – they don’t have
enormous involvement in the early stages of digital transformation.
Now people can see how nurses’ contribution in the design phase
would be helpful, and I want to get more engagement from other
senior leaders to be pushy with boards and others that nurses need to
be part of this change.”
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You’ve got to listen, and start with the
clinical need and work backwards.

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The UK government’s decision to allow data sharing during the
pandemic drastically improved the speed, quality and integration
of care and slashed bureaucracy.
The legal route to this was the decision by the Secretary of State for
Health and Social Care in the first weeks to issue a notice under the
Control of Patient Information (COPI) regulations instructing health
and care organisations to share patient data which would help in the
national response to Covid-19.
There was “a clear direction to share, and the feeling that you would
be supported if you did the wrong thing in terms of privacy for the
right reasons”.
One of the big beneficiaries was the 111 service, which became more
closely integrated with primary care and emergency departments:
“The change in the COPI regulations removed any burden from
record sharing, so basically there was direction from above saying
you’ve got to do it. That has allowed 111 to have access to records, and
makes it easier for them to do more of a clinical review of the patient.
Summary care records are being automatically uploaded, so there is a
massive improvement in record access. This has led to a real focus on
integration.”
Inevitably, this pragmatic approach to data sharing has laid bare the
difficulty with the rules that are usually in place: “One of the problems
is the way information governance rules and regulations are
interpreted differently by different organisations. Some are permissive
and others are restrictive. One of the big challenges is that you should
have a data sharing agreement with each organisation that you share
records with. This one-to-one link multiple times is unmanageable.”
The government is reviewing the rules to see what improvements
can be embedded long term: “Data sharing has highlighted the need
for a single national framework which says you need to share with
everyone in the NHS who is appropriate. All NHS organisations should
be able to prove they work to common standards of governance and
privacy.”
Liberate data sharing
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Once you prise people away from the traditional project
management processes they can surprise themselves with their
ability to think laterally and creatively: “Once things like the length of
time to get things approved went away, that made people think more
creatively, just giving creative licence to go off and do it and make it
happen.
“This showed that you can do things differently. People saw that
working in a more streamlined, fast way was a success. People also
enjoyed the momentum, that dynamic of working collaboratively
with a kind of urgency, which is probably going to mean we will look
at streamlining processes for certain types of projects [long term].”
Junior staff in particular felt liberated: “Some people found it an
extraordinary confidence boost in that they don’t need to cling on
to the pre-existing framework, that they can think laterally, work on
their feet, work in a more dynamic way than they realised there were
capable of before.”
Liberate talent and confidence
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People enjoyed the momentum, that
dynamic of working collaboratively.

Before the pandemic, Mary Marsh, Head of Targeted
Health Services for Redbridge at North East London
Foundation Trust, had been helping parents use Sitekit’s
eRedbook to access and build their child’s health records
and reach services. In just the same way as lockdown
encouraged NHS staff to use digital tools, parents and
patients have been on the same journey.
Mary stressed the importance of being clear on what need
you are meeting for service users when encouraging them
to use digital tools to connect: “When you are leading on
this sort of transformation you need to have clarity around
what’s in it for everybody, so how the functionality can
support parents and support practitioners. Simplicity is key
– it has to be very clear and very simple.”
She sees the potential for digital platforms such as
eRedbook to support service integration: “Digital
transformation in healthcare has got to support access
and outcomes for our clients, such as mums being able to
get their baby’s weight and it will ping an alert if there’s
a problem which will generally generate the opportunity
to speak to your health visitor, or if you’ve identified a
concern through a health review and you need a speech
and language therapist or access to a children’s centre. It’s
all about that [complete] package of care all in one place.
They don’t need to go anywhere else. We can use this to
transform services.”
eredbook.org.uk
Using digital to transform
the patient experience

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You can’t change culture unless you
demonstrate compassion for their beliefs.
While there will be moments in a crisis when a command-and-
control leadership style is needed, working with a clinician to
transform their practice requires empathy and understanding, so
that the innovation can be delivered in a way which supports their
beliefs and values rather than confronts them.
“Compassionate leadership is so important – listening to people,
empathising and trying to understand their point of view, where
they’re coming from. You can’t change culture on an individual basis
unless you demonstrate compassion for their beliefs.
“So if I’m telling a staff member that we are now transferring from
a completely face-to-face model of care to a remote model, that
challenges some of their values around their work and what they
think they are aiming to do in their profession. It is those beliefs which
underpin resistance to change, so if you don’t understand them it’s
much more of a struggle to transform the culture. So we set aside lots
of time to communicate, lots of time to think, brainstorm and frame
our objectives around what people value, such as high quality and
safe care.”
Employ emotionally intelligent
leadership
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Senior IT staff such as the chief information officer (CIO) have
been moving up the hierarchies of NHS organisations for some
years. Now the pandemic has reinforced the message that the IT
leads are senior strategic executives who must be at the heart of
the operation.
This proximity to other key decision-makers – notably the chief
medical and nursing officers – has been central to IT teams being
able to understand and meet operational needs quickly.
One CIO said: “I was part of the command centre team that was
stood up, so I sat virtually in a room with the clinicians and the nurses
that were dealing with the day-to-day operational challenges, so they
can just impart what it is they are finding most difficult and I can go
back to the team and say ‘this is what’s going on in the organisation,
these are the pinch points, how can we help?’ And that’s when some
of the really smart ideas have come out.
“It’s cemented my view about what it means to be a CIO, to be an
important member of the director team and somebody who gets
technology but also gets the operations and brings the two together.”
Put IT leaders at the heart of
decision-making
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The pandemic compressed decision-making times on issues such
as buying IT kit from months to minutes. This wasn’t achieved
simply by having a sense of urgency, it was the result of getting all
the key decision-makers in the room.
This was driven by using the ‘gold, silver, bronze’ command structure
deployed by the emergency services for managing major incidents:
“One of the things we established early on was gold, silver and bronze
levels of emergency response, like a war room. It meant we had all
the critical people in the room, the people to make the decisions we
needed.
“So those sorts of decisions, that sort of thinking and acting in a
crisis and having the funds to do that, demonstrates a collaborative
attitude from the finance people to the procurement people to the
clinicians to the IT people. That just came together, and we made
quick decisions and they mobilised their teams to get things done
quickly.”
Bringing people from different teams together to make rapid
decisions has been taking place in every part of a hospital: “We were
working on predictive modelling for escalation around deterioration
of patients, so it was about getting the data scientists involved with
the clinical team. We were running daily huddles where everybody
just gets together and works through the problems, identifying tasks
and solutions and blockers, and we move forward, whatever we need
to do.”
This way of working brings together elements of collective
leadership, command and control and autonomy. Decisions are being
agreed collectively rather than taken individually, then members of
that group and other staff are being given clear instructions about
what they need to do, but they are also given latitude in how they
achieve it.
Get all the decision-makers in the
room
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“In this structure, which is a command-and-control thing, you give
people a greater specificity in the task that they are set to deliver,
and then freedom to work away from usual structures within that.
It was paradoxically more command-and-control while also more
distributed form of leadership because people couldn’t make
decisions individually. They had to work with different values than
they had worked with before, which meant bringing people together
to check out if this was the right course of action.”
Staff were more willing to take risks – particularly cutting through
processes – because they were confident they would be judged on
their contribution to achieving the outcome: “Senior leaders will
judge you by your ability to find solutions to problems, so there is a
greater tolerance of trying and failing.”
In a crisis, “even if it didn’t work out as expected and even if you did
trample over a bit of governance, the people further up the food
chain will realise that you are doing your best endeavours in difficult
circumstances, and that’s what matters”.
But people recognised the importance of seeing the increased
appetite for risk in context. It didn’t necessarily mean that old
processes were wrong, but that the balance of risks – such as
between rigorous testing and delay – had changed.
“Some of the stuff we are thinking ‘it will do for now but we need to
circle back around on it’. It’s good enough for the situation we find
ourselves in, but health is a risky business and there’s a good reason
why we have some of these governance structures that we want to
keep.
“Actually there are some new risks associated with changes such
as remote working, so how do we strengthen this, not just from
a governance perspective but how do we make it a good patient
experience, a good staff experience and good patient safety?”
Support staff in taking risks to achieve
the right outcome
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One of the most obvious risks has been making clinical judgements
after carrying out a remote consultation. Particularly for less
experienced staff, the support of clinical colleagues has been critical:
“Staff felt they weren’t taking on that much risk because all our
senior staff were being really supportive. We had our phones on 24/7
because that’s what was needed, and we were quite hands on.”
In every NHS organisation in the coming months staff and
management will be grappling with that tension between
appropriate governance and capturing the benefits of some of the
speed and agility of the Covid-19 response.
“People were immediately saying ‘this is great, we’re making stuff
happen really quickly. We mustn’t lose this. It’s really important that
we continue working in this agile way and we break down some of
this bureaucracy’.
“But we’ve all been raised in a rational bureaucracy. And one of
the things that we are weighing up is the norm of the governance
stuff, the performance management, the metrics, and all that goes
to some of our core values. I don’t know how we would unlearn the
rational bureaucracy that we are working in.”
Staff felt they weren’t taking on much risk
because all our senior staff were being supportive.

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The crisis created an intense sense of shared responsibility, while
the usual internal politics fell by the wayside. People looked out for
each other, providing professional and personal support.
“A sense of accountability, of camaraderie, of being focused on
what’s important, being able to support each other, was really key.
We had a lot of emotional and mental support, there was no political
nonsense and it was far more collegial, working together and really
caring about each other.”
Reflecting on why this happened one person said: “A crisis forces
a different type of leadership. There is something about what it
stirs in us as human beings and our behaviours that supports more
collegiate ways of working and creative thinking.”
In their team, “everything became more agile, bringing in different
expertise that might not normally work together and giving them
licence to work in a different way. People thought about where could
they make the best contribution”.
Provide a shared sense of purpose
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A sense of camaraderie, of being focused on
what’s important, was key.

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Big trusts with relatively generous resources had a significant
advantage when it came to challenges such as taking on major
software development.
“What we had to do quite quickly was think about a virtual desktop
solution [for home working]. We had plans to address it probably into
2021 but the team got together with a couple of our suppliers and
my technical team. Bless them, I don’t know how they did it, but they
built, tested and deployed a virtual desktop solution in nine days.
That’s now being used by 1100 staff and we’re looking to expand it.”
Having that critical mass of highly trained staff to throw at a problem
may have implications for how IT teams organise, such as greater
pooling of staff and expertise between trusts.
Build a critical mass of technology
staff
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Understanding the clinical and operational need requires IT staff
with good communication skills and the empathy to comprehend
the working lives of the clinicians they are supporting.
“There are lessons for staff recruitment because, when everybody
is stressed, your ability to quickly understand what it is someone is
asking for and why makes a huge difference.
“For when I’m next recruiting staff, this has reinforced to me that
there are technical bits you can teach people, but the ability to
understand change and to be able to get out there and talk to
clinicians, understand what it is they’re asking for and come up with
solutions – I need more of those people. Soft skills are so important in
IT. They are underrated.”
Ensure good communication with
the IT team
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In one trust, the ability of the IT team to understand the needs of
clinical research played a major role in being able to sustain trials
through the pandemic: “My programme manager responsible for
that has a research background so he understands the environment
really well and was able to talk to the clinical people, the operational
people and information team and understand their requirements and
translate it. That was hugely important.”
In a massive institution such as the NHS, change comes from taking
people with you. One person observed: “I always describe the NHS
as a democracy, so in order to get people to do what you want them
to do or achieve your organisational objectives you’ve got to have a
winning argument. Without it you will fail.
“There’s no point just sending out an email saying ‘you will do this’,
because 85% of the staff will just ignore it.”
Win hearts and minds rather than
issue orders
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Don’t assume there is an age-driven sliding scale of people’s
willingness and ability to embrace digital transformation – there are
plenty of digital natives who struggle with new ways of working. One
hospital found that older people with fewer digital skills were more
motivated about digital transformation than some of the younger
staff.
Don’t make assumptions about who
will champion innovation
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While the move to virtual working took place in just days or even
hours, each person needed to adapt to new technology at their
own speed: “Innovation takes much longer than you think because
everyone is in a different place on their journey.
“We spent a lot of time creating webinars so that people can do
things at their own pace in their own time. You can’t expect the entire
department to go from A to Z in one go. People are going to take
different routes and some people are going to need more input.”
Let people move at their own speed
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You can’t expect the entire department
to go from A to Z in one go.
“There were people who were really keen and I don’t think you can
suggest it’s simply those who are more digitally literate. You can see
people who are confident and motivated but very low level in terms
of competence in digital technology, so they need a lot more training.
There are other people who are very competent and digital natives
who don’t like change, and that was a real sticking point.”

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The lower levels of infection over the summer of 2020 provided an
opportunity to review whether processes put in at speed should be
kept or jettisoned.
“We reflected on what we did in March, what we needed to do for
the second wave and what we would have done differently. We had
overcomplicated some elements of the response.
“At one time we had about 500 people stacked up asking for the
virtual desktop capability, and we were going through prioritising
them, making sure they should have it, did the laptop meet the
requirement, and then one Monday we just said ‘right, the wheels are
off, we’ve got the capacity, let’s just approve everyone’.”
Ensure good communication with
the IT team
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Amid all the pressure and confusion of the pandemic’s early weeks
it was all too easy for staff to lose sight of what they were trying to
achieve, a problem accentuated by remote working. Leaders have
needed to fill the gap: “My emphasis with my team was just to keep
linking back everything you’re doing to the fact that you’re making
the place safer for staff and patients.
“It’s difficult sometimes delivering in isolation, but those empathetic
traits and understanding of the service and its purpose are what
shone through, so those were the grounds on which people wanted
to make those changes.”
Always keep sight of the goal
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Impact of innovation on NHS
culture
Alongside the direct impact on digital
transformation, the response to the
pandemic has accentuated many of the
best attributes of public service and the
pursuit of quality improvement. At this
stage worst of the pandemic recedes, it is
important to reflect on how teams in the
NHS and beyond have grown stronger
during this emergency.
Step change in cross-team working
Both the necessities of the pandemic
response and the chance to work in
new ways using collaboration tools
have led to a dramatic increase in the
volume, speed, quality and geographical
reach of interdisciplinary and cross-
team working. Vastly more clinicians
have now experienced the power of
online collaboration, and IT teams have
identified this as a key role they can play
in building on the momentum for change
generated during the pandemic, such
as by streamlining the sharing of clinical
information.
“The multidisciplinary team working
has just flown, and the more we can do
to make that a really fantastic experience,
and bring in other specialties and other
trusts and make sure that they get the
best possible way of working, not just
even regionally but internationally as well,
I can’t see that changing. I don’t think
we’ll go back.”
The multidisciplinary team
working has just flown.

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More effective meetings
There is good anecdotal evidence that
meeting discipline and etiquette have
been better online than in person. People
are more punctual, they arrive better
prepared, they are more disciplined about
sticking to the agenda and they use
technology such as chat and the hands
up function rather than interrupting.
“Before, you would get lots of people
crammed in a room, perhaps not as
focused as they might have been. With a
well-constructed remote meeting people
are arriving on time, very much observing
the need for a virtual hand up to be
able to then say your piece, so meeting
etiquette has improved.
“And the people responsible for pulling
the whole thing together say their lives
are considerably easier running these
meetings remotely than when they
were trying to run them in person. We
surveyed the teams and broadly people
really like the format. It’s been positive
for us, so we won’t be going back on that
one.”
IT teams valued as delivery partners
Just as IT staff have developed greater
understanding of the working lives
of their clinical colleagues, support
services such IT and procurement are
now recognised as strategic partners
in delivery rather than the blockers of
popular myth. IT went “from being too
often seen as obstructions to delivery to
facilitators and collaborators in it”.
Greater digital literacy and confidence
Digital literacy and confidence across the
NHS and patients has rocketed, opening
people’s minds to new ways of working,
encouraging them to experiment with
digital tools and preparing the ground
for future digital developments: “Rolling
out systems for digital collaboration and
communication across the organisation
has raised the digital literacy of the
entire workforce quickly. That is making
subsequent digital innovations easier –
people are less nervous of their abilities.”
Another said: “The launch of video and
messaging tools across the NHS is one
of those big revolutionary things. For
us at the front end that enabled us to
communicate in a way that we couldn’t
before in terms of cross-site meetings
about capacity and flow and planning,
but also how we could have nurses
and others working from home to see
patients. They understand why we need
to shift [to digital] more than they did
before, and they’ve got more capable of
working with it.”
There has been a move from seeing
hospital IT as another challenge to
overcome, to being an enabler which
improves productivity and saves time:
“Our meetings are all on a video platform,
and that will never stop. We will save
hundreds of hours and have smoothed
the process. We showed them how to
make it a channel rather than a meeting
in everyone’s calendar.

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Lots of little things like that are
contributing to a much more tech savvy
workforce.”
More appetite for digital transformation
Digital development has jumped up
everyone’s priority list, from the frontline
to the board, including people who had
previously been reticent to embrace it.
One hospital was partway through its
EPR implementation programme, but
rather than pause the project “we felt
more than ever that we needed to get
on with it, so rather than everybody
saying ‘no, we couldn’t possibly do that,
don’t you know we’re so busy’ – the usual
excuses – we’ve had people coming to us
and say ‘yes, I’d like to get involved.’
“It’s strengthened the belief among the
people that were already firmly behind
the need to transform digitally, but it’s
brought a bunch of people on board that
were a bit more reticent. That is borne
out when we’ve looked at priorities for
the next few years and most people you
speak to will jump straight to digital in
the organisation. That wasn’t where we
were.”

29
Digital development has jumped
up everyone’s priority list.

17-21 Ashford Road, Maidstone, England, ME14 5DA
www.sitekit.net
sales@sitekit.net
+44 800 047 8644

Liberate to Innovate: Learning from the pandemic – the behaviours that will deliver NHS digital transformation

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